Hbc Heritage | Catalogues Morgan's HBC Heritage Services maintains a collection of catalogues for reference purposes. Please note that our series of catalogues is not complete. To request information about particular holdings, please complete the attached request form . If you have copies of catalogues from any of these companies, and are interested in donating them to our collection, please Contact Us . Hudson's Bay Company In the 1880s HBC entered a new phase in its development as the basis of the Company's business shifted from trade for furs to a cash economy. In the larger western centres, such as Calgary, Vancouver and Winnipeg, the Company was opening retail establishments. While these stores catered to growing urban populations people located outside cities were still limited in their options. To remedy this situation and service these remote customers, Hudson's Bay Company produced its first catalogue in 1881. People without direct access to stores could now purchase goods and have them delivered. Compared to other retail establishments however, HBC's catalogue service was relatively short-lived. The last customer-oriented catalogue was published in 1913. This distinction is important since catalogues continued to be produced internally after this date for the Fur Trade (later Northern Stores) Department.

Internal catalogues provided the far-flung posts and depots with descriptions of the products with which they could stock their shelves and included everything from clothing and provisions to musical instruments, tents and canoes. Simpsons The Robert Simpson Company Limited opened its first mail order office in 1885 but didn't produce its first catalogue until 1894. By the early part of the 20th century, mail order had become a thriving part of the business, so much so that in 1916 a new mail order building was constructed in Toronto to replace the existing structure which had become too small. The mail order department continued to grow: new buildings were opened in Regina in 1916 and Halifax in 1919. In 1930, Charles Burton, then president of Simpsons, decided that the catalogues should be printed in-house, so the Toronto Mail Order Building was expanded to accommodate the presses. In the 1940s, the Company expanded its catalogue offerings to four per year. Simpsons continued to produce seasonal catalogues until the 1950s, when Simpson's and Sears signed an agreement.

The resulting new company, Simpsons-Sears, took over the mail-order business. Its first catalogue was issued in 1953. Simpson's own catalogue tradition was continued in a diminished form through the annual Christmas Wish Book. Woodward's Following on the heels of Hudson's Bay Company in the west, Woodward's published its first catalogue in 1896. In 1902, after opening their first food centre, the Company also started to issue separate food catalogues. Woodward's mail order service was ended in 1953. Shop-Rite An overview of Hudson's Bay Company catalogues would be incomplete without mentioning Shop-Rite. These were not mail order catalogues per se, but rather were the basis of a whole new experiment in retailing. The Shop-Rite concept was based on the concept of catalogue shopping done in store. Customers would enter the store, browse the catalogue, select their merchandise and apply to the store clerk for the item. The first Shop-Rite stores were acquired by Hudson's Bay Company in 1972 and the chain, which eventually had over 60 stores in Ontario, closed in 1982.

History of the Sears Catalog landsend.com The 1943 Sears News Graphic wrote that the Sears catalog, "serves as a mirror of our times, recording for future historians todayï¿½s desires, habits, customs, and mode of living." The roots of the Sears catalog are as old as the company. In 1888, Richard Sears first used a printed mailer to advertise watches and jewelry. Under the banner "The R.W. Sears Watch Co." Sears promised his customers that, "we warrant every American watch sold by us, with fair usage, an accurate time keeper for six years ï¿½ during which time, under our written guarantee we are compelled to keep it in perfect order free of charge." The time was right for mail order merchandise. Fueled by the Homestead Act of 1862, Americaï¿½s westward expansion followed the growth of the railroads. The postal system aided the mail order business by permitting the classification of mail order publications as aids in the dissemination of knowledge entitling these catalogs the postage rate of one cent per pound. The advent of Rural Free Delivery in 1896 also made distribution of the catalog economical.

All this set the stage for the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog. A master at slogans and catchy phrases, Richard Sears illustrated the cover of his 1894 catalog declaring it the "Book of Bargains: A Money Saver for Everyone," and the "Cheapest Supply House on Earth," claiming that "Our trade reaches around the World." Sears also knew the importance of keeping customers, boldly stating that "We Canï¿½t Afford to Lose a Customer." He proudly included testimonials from satisfied customers and made every effort to assure the reader that Sears had the lowest prices and best values. This catalog expanded from watches and jewelry, offering merchandise such as sewing machines, sporting goods, musical instruments, saddles, firearms, buggies, bicycles, baby carriages, and menï¿½s and childrenï¿½s clothing. The 1895 catalog added eyeglasses, including a self-test for "old sight, near sight and astigmatism." At this time Sears wrote nearly every line appearing in the catalogs drawing upon his personal experience using language and expressions that appealed to his target customers. In 1896 Richard Sears added a spring and fall catalog and enlarged the size.

He also extended an open invitation for all customers to visit the companyï¿½s Chicago headquarters. For the first time the company charged for the catalog. Sears tried to mitigate the 25-cent fee by promising to apply the fee to any orders over 10 dollars. Specialty catalogs now appeared covering such items as bicycles, books, clothing, groceries, pianos and organs, and sewing machines. Sears sold the earliest entertainment centers in the form of magic lanterns. These were either a single slide type, or a version called the chromatrope, which showed a succession of slides giving the viewers a motion picture feel. Sears added a color section in 1897, advertising shoes in black, red and brown. New products included cloth bound books as cheap alternatives to hardbound books, and the Edison Graphophone Talking Machine. Incorporating a new trend, Sears added a "club order program" encouraging customers to combine their orders with friends or neighbors to share in discounts. A Builders Hardware and Material Section appeared; selling everything a customer needed to construct a building.

Noting that all men are not equal in size and shape, Sears targeted the extra stout and extra large customer with menï¿½s laundered shirts specifically made for them. In 1898, he added more specialty catalogs including ones for photographic goods, talking machines, and mixed paints. In the general catalog a color section showed different buggies in red, green, brown, and black with gold or silver trim. He placed the Graphophone in an office setting, and the optigraph moving picture machine appeared. Reflecting current events, the lantern slide collection included shows on the Klondike gold fields, the destruction of the Maine and the Cuban war. The 1899 catalog featured color images of carpets, furniture, and china. In the photographic supplies section Sears offered "Special Lecture Outfits" giving the purchaser projection equipment, a screen, advertising posters, admission tickets, and a printing outfit, everything an entrepreneur needed to set up a theater for paying customers. The optigraph moving picture equipment worked with either electricity or a system using a gas process to provide illumination.

Limes were one of the ingredients used in these gas systems helping coin the phrase "in the lime light." The 1903 catalog included the commitment "Your money back if you are not satisfied," and Richard Sears added a handwritten note to his customers. Always looking to cater to customer needs, Sears employed translators who could "read and write all languages." He featured new items such as barber chairs, disc graphophones, and basketballs and goals (hoops). The next year he sold the Eveready searchlight and the babygate, and the company announced the opening of the Sears camera factory. The wig department added wigs for African-American men and women. To encourage repeat customers, Sears initiated a program called "customer profit sharing" giving the customer a one-dollar certificate for every dollar spent. By accumulating these certificates the customer could redeem them for specific items. To get a hands on feel, the 1905 catalog featured full color and texture wallpaper samples, and a swatch of material used in menï¿½s suits.

Following this trend, the next year he added paint samples, and in 1908, the last year Richard Sears was associated with the company, he offered both wallpaper and paint color sample books to customers. In early November 1908, Richard Sears resigned his position at Sears. He guided the company for almost twenty years and now wanted to relax and begin enjoying his life. His legacy lasts in the words, descriptions, and product offerings found in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog. In addition to recording the changing scene in America, the catalogs represent the work and efforts of thousands of Americans. Edgar Rice Burroughs, who later wrote the Tarzan series, worked for Sears. Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, Gloria Swanson, Susan Dey, Cheryl Tiegs, and Stephanie Powers all appeared on the pages of Sears catalogs as models. The catalogs also featured Roy Rodgers, Ted Williams, Al Unser, and Gene Autry. Because the catalogs accurately reflect the styles and furnishings popular through the years, producers of Broadway shows and Hollywood movies frequently refer to them.

Of particular interest to people studying the history of early fraternal organizations are the pages offering pins for such organizations as the freemasons and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. For sports or recreation historians the section on sporting goods provides a chronology for when items first appeared. Reflecting modern trends in retailing, the company decided to stop producing the general catalog in 1993. While Sears no longer issues the Big Book Catalog, the company continues offering many specialty catalogs including the Christmas Wish Book, and catalogs for tools, auto accessories, home improvements, clothing, and even Barbie collectibles. Today Sears is moving into the electronic age by offering Sears Direct services. This gives the customer the opportunity to order items through the Shop at Home catalog concept featuring an on-line Wish Book, and an on-line site for Craftsman tools and parts. Copyright ï¿½ 2017. Sears Brands, LLC. All rights reserved.

Contact History - Canadian Mail Order Catalogues - Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada Canadian Mail Order Catalogues History In 1884 Timothy Eaton produced a small, pink, 32-page catalogue listing items and prices and distributed it to visitors at the Industrial Exhibition (now known as the Canadian National Exhibition) in Toronto. The next spring, a 6-page flyer announced Timothy Eaton's new mail order department. While the Eaton's catalogue was not the first mail order catalogue in North America, it was one of the first to be distributed by a Canadian retail store. Simpson's Spring and Summer 1899 Source It was ten years before Simpson's produced their first mail order catalogue. By then, Eaton's had cornered a large segment of the market. By 1896, Eaton's mail order department was sending out 135 000 parcels by post and almost 74 000 by express. From the beginning, building a mailing list was paramount to success. Eaton's expanded its list by offering existing customers gifts in exchange for names and addresses of friends and neighbours.

One example is a missionary farmer's wife from northern British Columbia, who received a winter coat in return for sending in a list of her neighbours. Eaton's tried to get their catalogues into the hands of as many rural customers as possible. City dwellers were also on the mailing list and all Eaton's customers were encouraged to visit the store. Eaton's catered to the rural customers who made periodic visits to town by offering features such as a "Farmer's Waiting Room", which was a place for rural customers to take a break and relax before continuing their shopping. This tactic seems to have been effective, for in-store sales continued to be greater than mail order sales. Back cover, P.T. Legaré, 1920 Source P.T. Legaré, a French-Canadian retailer based in Montréal, distributed their first catalogue in 1910. Goodwin's, also in Montréal, followed in 1911. Dupuis Frères, another French-Canadian retailer, created its mail order service in 1922. Army and Navy, serving the west, began mail order in 1924 and Canadian Tire sent out its first catalogue in 1928.

By the 1920s, Hudson's Bay, Morgan's and Woodward's all had a mail order service. With the exception of Dupuis Frères and P.T. Legaré, French-language shoppers had to be content with catalogues written in English. Eaton's produced one all-French catalogue in 1910, but this was not repeated until 1927. So French customers were asked to look at the pictures and prices and make do. It was preferred that customers write their order in English, but if they couldn't, then they could write in French and expect a response in the same language. When the Eaton's catalogue was finally available in both English and French, it is interesting to note that the French was not a translation of the English. An example of this is the description for a pair of girls' panties. The English description states that they will "not slide or ride up," while the French description for the same item says "elastique, ferme et durable." Many of the big retailers produced separate catalogues or parts of catalogues for specific target shoppers. Dupuis Frères, for example, printed catalogues for the general public as well as for more specific customers.

Created to serve French Canadians and in particular, Catholics, there appeared for some time on the flip side of the order form, instructions for how to take measurements for a cassock. Dupuis Frères also published a separate catalogue for Catholic clergy. Cassock and surplice, Dupuis Frères, Automne et hiver 1945-1946. Source Eaton's targeted specific markets such as settlers, miners and prospectors in the Klondike, creating unique catalogues for their customers in the west and in the Maritimes. In order to shorten the time it took to receive orders, a store with its own catalogue operations was opened in Winnipeg in 1905. In Moncton, a mail order building was built in 1918. The earliest mail order catalogues had no illustrations or colour. Illustrations began to make an appearance by 1887 and colour was introduced on selected pages, such as those advertising clothing, fabrics and toys, in 1915. The 1919 catalogues used a combination of photographs and line drawings, such as photographs of heads placed on illustrated bodies. This often created very awkward effects.

In the early days, the products advertised were mainly women's and children clothes, with just a small section for men. Other categories were gradually included such as mattresses, books, stationary and then later, glass, china, silver, lamps and medicines. By the early 1890s, furniture was being sold and in the mid 1890s, farm equipment and agricultural implements appeared. In the 1910s and 1920s, a person could place a mail order for the materials needed to build houses and barns! Advertisement for carload lots of lumber, Eaton's Fall and Winter 1918-19 Source One can trace the coming of many technological innovations through the pages of mail order catalogues. Electricity, modern indoor plumbing, labour-saving devices such as the washing machine -- mail order catalogues bear witness to all of these life-altering changes. While mail order continues to flourish among retailers today and has a contemporary form in e-commerce, the players are no longer the same.

Eaton's published its last catalogue in 1976, the Dupuis Frères catalogues closed in 1963 and Simpson's, which had merged with the American Sears to become Simpson's-Sears, sold its mail order business to Sears in the 1980s. Montgomery Ward published the first mail-order catalog in 1872. - ReadWriteThink Montgomery Ward published the first mail-order catalog in 1872. In a world full of junk mail and an endless array of catalogs, students may not think much about where it all startedï¿½in Chicago, Illinois in 1872, when entrepreneur Montgomery Ward mailed a one-page catalog to rural shoppers. ï¿½ Explore how mail-order catalogs have changed over the years. Most libraries will have reproductions of a Ward or a Sears and Roebuck catalog. Alternately, access the linked images from the entry on Ward from the Engines of Our Ingenuity website or the online images from an 1875 Montgomery Ward catalog available on Flickr (with login). Ask students to consider how and why catalogs have changed over the years.

After discussing the obvious differences, such as the use of color in modern catalogs and the differences in paper quality, focus students' attentions on the layout and style of the catalogs. As an extension, ask students to compare their findings about printed catalogs with online catalogs. ï¿½ Mail Order Mail Order Mail Order Cover of Sears Catalog, 1898 Mail-order retailing became a big business in Chicago. During the half century that followed the establishment of a mail-order company by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872, Chicago companies dominated the business of selling directly to consumers across the country by using catalogs and deliveries through the mail. Montgomery Ward and Sears, both based in Chicago, were the leaders of the early mail-order industry and became giant enterprises through catalog sales long before they began to open retail stores. Even after the 1920s, when the growth of the mail-order business slowed, Chicago companies continued to stand among its leaders. By the end of the twentieth century, when Wards went out of business entirely and Sears no longer issued giant catalogs, the city's mail-order industry was no longer the precocious adolescent it had been in 1900.

Nevertheless, Chicago remained home to several leading companies in an evolving but still important sector of the economy. Montgomery Ward & Co., 1926 Montgomery Ward & Co., the world's first giant mail-order enterprise, started in Chicago just after the fire of 1871 . Aaron Montgomery Ward, a native of New Jersey, arrived in the city just after the Civil War . He soon found a job with Field, Palmer & Leiter, the dry-goods wholesaler and retailer that would become Marshall Field & Co. Ward left town to work as a salesman in St. Louis and the South, but he soon returned. In 1872, when he was 28, he opened his own business. Ward's company tried to convince rural consumers to buy a variety of goods (including clothing , furniture , and hardware ) through the mail. It turned out that many farm families were willing and able to do so, especially after Ward initiated a policy of “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back” in 1875.

Among Ward's first customers were members of the Patrons of Husbandry (or Grange), an agrarian organization that liked the idea of circumventing local mercantile middlemen by buying directly from Chicago. Ward advertised by sending out a catalog, which started as a single page but expanded quickly, growing to 32 pages in 1874, 152 pages in 1876, and nearly 1,000 pages by 1897. By the 1880s, the growing volume of orders from this catalog led Ward to employ over a hundred Chicagoans as clerks; by 1897, this workforce was up to over a thousand. By that time, Ward's company had become Chicago's leading user of the U.S. mails, and annual sales had ballooned to about $7 million. The heyday of the mail-order business occurred between the 1890s and the 1910s, when it was dominated by Montgomery Ward and Sears. During this period, these companies became two of the largest business enterprises in the United States.

Wards, which opened several mail-order branches across the country during the first part of the twentieth century, was employing over seven thousand men and women in the Chicago area by 1910. By 1913, Wards was selling about $40 million worth of goods per year. Even more astounding than the rapid growth of Wards was the rise of Sears. The firm of Sears, Roebuck & Co., which settled in Chicago in 1895, was the creation of a Minnesotan named Richard W. Sears. After getting his start in the 1880s by selling watches through the mail, Sears (whose partner Alvah C. Roebuck started as a watch repairman) established a general mail-order company along the lines of Wards. Only a few years after its birth, Sears overtook Wards as the leading mail-order company. Like Wards, Sears issued giant catalogs and succeeded in attracting orders for a variety of goods from hundreds of thousands of rural consumers. By 1905, Sears had about nine thousand employees, and its annual sales approached $50 million.

Much of Sears's success was overseen by Julius Rosenwald, who became a partner in the company in 1895 and became its president after Richard Sears retired in 1909. By 1914, when Sears had branches in Dallas and Seattle in addition to its central operation in Chicago, the company's annual mail-order sales had surpassed $100 million. By the early part of the twentieth century, the mail-order retailing business—led by the Chicago giants—had become a major sector of the American economy, through which millions of rural consumers purchased a variety of goods. This development, which was part of a general trend in which commodity consumption by individuals and households was taking on greater economic and cultural significance, was both embraced and resisted. By 1919, Americans were buying over $500 million worth of goods a year from mail-order companies (roughly half of this business went to Wards and Sears alone). The millions of bulky mail-order catalogs sent from Chicago to points around the country had become important cultural documents, with significance that went beyond the purely economic.

Particularly in rural areas, which were still home to half of the American population as late as 1920, the catalogs served not only as a marketing tool, but also as school readers, almanacs, symbols of abundance and progress, and objects of fantasy and desire. For many consumers, the kind of mail-order retailing pioneered by Wards and Sears offered a wider variety of goods (which ranged from the smallest items to entire houses), more generous credit terms, and lower prices than they could get from local merchants. Farmers' groups, which tended to favor the bypassing of economic intermediaries, were supporters of the mail-order business from the beginning. Local merchants, on the other hand, fought the national mail-order houses in both the economic and political arenas. Between the 1890s and the 1910s, U.S. postal policy became a battleground for retailers. The adoption of rural free delivery in 1898 and parcel post in 1913, both of which were enacted by Congress over the objections of local retailers and their allies, represented victories for the mail-order business and for Chicago.

Spiegel Furniture Ad, 1905 Wards and Sears were not the only Chicago companies running successful mail-order enterprises during the early twentieth century. The Hartman Company, which sold furniture by mail out of its central depot on Wentworth Avenue, filled about $13 million in orders per year by the early 1920s. Another Chicago furniture dealer that would eventually become one of the most important firms in the mail-order industry was Spiegel. This company's founder, the German -born Joseph Spiegel, started a home furnishings company in Chicago just after the Civil War. In 1904, Joseph and his son Arthur decided to move into mail order. By 1929, the Spiegel family's company (which by then sold women's clothing as well as furniture) was selling over $20 million in goods per year through the mail. A strategy of generous consumer credit , low prices, and high volume allowed Spiegel to accomplish the remarkable feat of expanding its operations during the Great Depression . During the 1920s, facing slower growth in sales the Chicago mail-order giants decided to move into a new form of retailing by opening large numbers of stores around the country.

Catalog sales continued, but Sears and Wards soon ranked among the world's leading chain stores. Led by Sears chief Robert E. Wood, this change represented a massive transfer of capital from mail-order to brick-and-mortar retailing. By 1929, only five years after opening its first store, Sears had over three hundred stores around the country; Wards had about five hundred. By the beginning of the 1930s, mail order was no longer the primary concern of the Chicago giants, which continued to grow and continued to stand among the country's leading companies. During the second half of the twentieth century, the original Chicago mail-order giants and their catalog operations faltered, but other local companies prospered in what continued to be a major industry. By the 1970s, when the mail-order business accounted for about a third of U.S. postal revenues, most catalog customers lived in urban areas. By this time, the volume of Sears's annual mail-order business was about $3 billion, and that of Wards was close to $1 billion. But these mail-order sales (as well as those at the companies' stores) were no longer very profitable.

During the 1980s and 1990s, both Wards and Sears stopped issuing their big catalogs. The death of Wards in 2000 was a final sign that the age of the Chicago mail-order giants was over. At the same time, however, the American mail-order business was expanding, and more specialized catalog firms in Chicago stood among its leaders. Spiegel, which in 1953 had chosen to pursue a different path from Sears and Wards by abandoning its retail stores, continued to operate out of headquarters in the Chicago area, where it employed about 4,000 local residents during the 1970s. In 1988, Spiegel acquired the “Eddie Bauer” retail stores and mail-order brand. By the 1990s, the company had about 20,000 employees worldwide and did over $3 billion in annual sales. Other leading mail-order specialists based in the Chicago region during the late twentieth century included Hammacher Schlemmer, the Quill Corporation, and the Reliable Corporation, which together sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of office supplies and equipment.

At the opening of the twenty-first century, as some old mail-order catalogs were being replaced or supplemented with electronic versions, the city continued to be a leading hub in the industry. Mark R. Wilson Bibliography Emmet, Boris, and John E. Jeuck. Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company. 1950. Rips, Rae Elizabeth. “An Introductory Study of the Mail Order Business in American History, 1872–1914.” M.A. thesis, University of Chicago. 1938. Smalley, Orange A., and Frederick D. Sturdivant. The Credit Merchants: A History of Spiegel, Inc. 1973. The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2005 Chicago Historical Society. The Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2004 The Newberry Library. All Rights Reserved. Portions are copyrighted by other institutions and individuals. Additional information on copyright and permissions. Homan Square Sears, Roebuck and Co. Contact Us Sears, Roebuck and Co. Founded in 1893, Sears, Roebuck and Co.

was the country’s largest mail order concern by 1900. In 1904 Sears, Roebuck and Company purchased 4l.6 acres on Chicago’s west side and commissioned the architectural firm of Nimmons and Fellows to design a plant. The Thompson-Starrett Company received the construction contract, and ground was broken on January 24, 1905. The proposed complex was “so large that they were compelled to ask the City Council of Chicago to close certain streets so that they might build over them. Since its construction in 1905-6, the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Complex was symbolic of the company’s dominance of the mail order industry. The complex contained the printing plant that for many years produced the Sears Catalog, the company’s principal selling instrument; the nine-story Mail Order Plant whose 3 million square feet of floor space made it the world’s largest business building at the time; the one-story Power Plant which provided heating and cooling for the entire complex; and the original Sears Tower. Seven thousand men were hired for the project, and each day 60 freight car loads of building materials were used.

Eventually, 23 million brick and almost 15 million feet of lumber were consumed in the completing the project. By October 1906 the Mail Order Plant was complete, and on January 22, 1906, the company transferred its entire operations to the new facility. In later years, Sears added to the complex a merchandise manufacturing facility, a sunken garden, parking decks and lots, an automotive center, an Allstate Insurance Building, a distribution facility, a construction and display building, and numerous support structures. Until 1973, when the 110-story Sears Tower, the world’s tallest building, was completed in downtown Chicago, the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Complex served as the firm’s headquarters. Of the original 41.6-acre complex, an area of 16 acres was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978. The Mail Order Plant was demolished except for the tower to make way for the Homan Square Community Center Campus. In the 1920s extensive athletic facilities were added and athletic field events. They encouraged after-work socialization to keep high morale among their employees.

Included were a clubhouse and tennis courts, and the Sears Department of the YMCA. Events included an annual track and field competitions, and company baseball teams. Sears created their own services for effective use, much advanced beyond what was required at the time: a company fire department, with volunteer firemen, and early use of fire sprinklers; 200,000 gallon water tank, water use and fire prevention purposes; newspaper publicity office; testing laboratory for new products; cafeteria – originally men and women were separated, and multiple levels of service for all employee lunch and breakfast; and the Sears Bank – services for employees on site. The electricity supplied by the power house operated the ventilating system, escalators, and transmission belts for carrying merchandise between the stock departments and the shipping departments. Over nine miles of pneumatic tubing quickly transported letters and other papers from one department to another. By 1926, the first ground level parking lots replaced the athletic fields. This happened at the same time that a strategic shift from catalog sales to retail stores had started with easy auto travel making travel to a store more practical. The first Sears retail store opened in Chicago on February 2, 1925 in the Merchandise building.

This store included an optical shop and a soda fountain. Richard W. Sears, founder of the company, aptly called it a “city within a city.” The Mother of All Catalogs Ceases Publication, 10 Years Ago - History in the Headlines The Mother of All Catalogs Ceases Publication, 10 Years Ago January 25, 2013 By Barbara Maranzani Cover of Fall 1909 Sears Catalog Share this: The Mother of All Catalogs Ceases Publication, 10 Years Ago Author The Mother of All Catalogs Ceases Publication, 10 Years Ago URL Google On January 25, 2003, Sears, Roebuck and Co. announced that it was ending publication of its famed “Big Book, “ catalog, which for more than 100 years had allowed Americans to buy everything from clothing and food to medicine and automobiles, all from the comforts of their own homes—in fact, Sears might have even sold them the house itself. Ten years after its last issue hit mailboxes, take a look back at the history of the Sears catalog. A former railroad employee, R.W.

Sears got into the retail business almost by accident, when he purchased a shipment of watches from a disgruntled wholesaler who had received an incorrect order. Advertising his watches by flyers and mail-order catalogs, Sears quickly turned a profit on his investment and within a year had founded his own company, initially selling only watches. He soon was joined in the venture by Alvah Roebuck, and in 1893 Sears, Roebuck, and Co. was born. Targeting rural customers with little access to goods produced primarily in the east, and offering stable, straightforward pricing, Sears, Roebuck quickly expanded its business—and the number of pages in the annual catalog they sent to customers. It was on the back of the mail-order business that Sears built his empire—in fact, he didn’t get around to opening an actual store until more than 30 years later. The company had a number of competitors, including Montgomery Ward, Hammacher Schlemmer and others, but it was the Sears catalog that became an American icon. By the early 20th century, the Sears catalog had become so entwined with the American psyche that the government began to use it for propaganda purposes at home and abroad.

During the World Wars, thousands of catalogs were sent to American soldiers at the front and convalescing in foreign hospitals to bring them a taste of home. President Franklin Roosevelt famously said that the best way to combat communism was to give them a good dollop of capitalism in the form of Sears catalogs. The Soviets took note—in 1981 they selected that year’s catalog as one of 300 works put on display in a cultural exhibit meant to inform the Soviet public about America. (They also included “Jane Fonda’s Workout Book.”) The Sears catalog was around for so many years, it’s perhaps not surprising that a number of famous Americans were featured in its pages. Several aspiring actresses got their start modeling in the catalog, including silent film star Gloria Swanson, femme fatales Susan Hayward and Lauren Bacall and even supermodel Cheryl Tiegs. R.W. Sears famously wrote every line of copy in the early issues, but after he retired the task fell to a series of writers, including author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who went on to later fame as the creator or Tarzan. During the Great Depression, artist Norman Rockwell created a series of paintings for the catalogs’ covers.

And even big-screen cowboys and famous athletes, like Roy Rogers and Ted Williams, were recruited to hawk the latest products. In addition to being a cultural touchstone, the catalog was big, big business. By 1931, in the midst of the Great Depression, Sears’ catalog and retail businesses generated annual profits of more than $2.5 billion in today’s money, and within the next decade, the company’s sales accounted for more than 1 percent of U.S. gross national product. Here are just a few examples of some of the hundreds and hundreds of items you could buy through the Sears, Roebuck catalog. Early Entertainment Systems The folks at Sears, Roebuck were early adopters of modern technology. Almost as soon as they hit the market, consumers could order gizmos and gadgets like Thomas Edison’s gramophone, radios and televisions. Millions of Americans were first introduced to moving images through devices bought at Sears, including the chromatrope, which flashed a series of slides telling a narrative story, and the optigraph, one of the first electronic projection systems.

And Sears had you covered if you wanted to open your own theater, with a kit that included projection screens, posters advertising the latest releases and pre-stamped admission tickets. In 1914, they even began selling private electricity plants designed to generate electricity in rural areas. Touch and Feel Textiles By 1905, understanding that some items required more than just illustrations, Sears began incorporating physical samples of its products in the pages of the catalog. If you were in the market for paint, you could now choose your exact shade. If you wanted wallpaper, you could closely examine dozens of different patterns. And selecting a new suit was easy when you could touch and feel the weight and softness of the material. Mail-Order Chickens and More That’s right, along with pantry staples such as flour, lard and butter, America’s housewives could stock their farms with animals sent right to their door. In addition, Sears stocked hundreds of different food items, and by the early 20th century, the catalog offered a wide variety of ethnic foods to cater to America’s growing immigrant population.

You could send away for Jamaican ginger, canned frijoles, pickled pigs’ feet and a surprisingly wide variety of herrings and other fishes from Norway, Sweden and Scotland. Human- and Motor-Powered Vehicles Today, Sears continues to be a pioneer in auto parts and tools, but from the 1920s onward, you could buy the vehicles themselves from the pages of the catalog. Over its history, the company offered everything from bicycles, wagons and tractors to motorcycles and even a series of automobiles that included early motor buggies and the more advanced “Allstate” brand of sedans, many of which were made to order. Tombstones, Monuments and Mortuary Stones Sears even took care of their customers’ needs in the afterlife. Special inserts, which could run more than 50 pages, offered the latest in funerary finery. The catalog featured simple, elegant headstones in marble of varying qualities and everything from elaborate monuments to honor entire families to pillars with and without animals carved on top to massive crosses and shamrock-shaped tombstones.

(They helpfully included a list of Bible verses in the back pages to simplify your selection.) Pills, Potions and Prescriptions Thumbing through the pages of old Sears catalogs, one can find a plethora of ailments and potential cures. Take arsenic wafers for a clear complexion or order opiates to cure jangling nerves. Peruse ads for potions and creams that claimed to increase your bust size, right alongside ones that promised to reduce them. For every dubious medical offering, there was a tried-and-true remedy like aspirin or Alka-Seltzer. And with eye doctors in short supply on the prairie, Sears offered up a wide selection of eyewear. Not sure what your prescription was? Just take the at-home eye test tucked into the catalog to determine your vision needs. Houses in (Thousands of) Boxes The mail-order home kit, first advertised in the pages of the 1908 catalog, may be the most famous (and ambitious) of all Sears offerings. Initially, Sears got into the home-kit business as a way of boosting sales in its slumping lumber department, but when interest boomed, they increased production, and soon offered more than two dozen different designs.

All the prospective homeowner had to provide was the lot and the manpower—nails and tools were included in the kit. Sears eventually offered payment plans and even mortgages, but ended those financial practices after foreclosures skyrocketed during the Great Depression. Prices varied, with the most expensive designs ever produced costing roughly $55,000 in today’s money. Some of the more extravagant kits came with more than 30,000 individual pieces, and could be outfitted with the latest technology for an additional cost; optional upgrades included indoor plumping and central heating. Companies and communities often bought these houses in bulk, like Standard Oil did in 1919 when it created a town for its Carlin, Illinois, mineworkers that consisted entirely of 156 Sears homes. Eventually, more than 70,000 Americans built homes purchased through Sears, and today, thanks to their surprisingly good workmanship, thousands of them are still standing—including more than 200 in Elgin, Illinois, alone. Tags

Question: Which company produced the first mail order catalogue?
Answer: Sears and Roebuck